Segment 9: Memories of Indochine

Directed by Doug Reilly
Produced by Tom D'Agostino

Catherine Gallouet was born in Da Lat, Vietnam at the height of the French Indochina war. Her mother was an army nurse and her father was an officer in the French Foreign Legion. Professor Gallouet has sifted through the boxes of documents, letters, journals, and photographs she has been given by her parents to weave together the story of her parents, France, Vietnam, and her own identity. Told largely through her mother’s journals and letters and her father’s photographs, Gallouet’s film provides a personal and historical perspective on the French Indochina War—a war that would continue from the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 in a different form: the American War.